Investing Jesus-Style
based on Matthew 25:14-30
Rev. Karen A. Goltz

So if I’m reading this right, Jesus is saying that if you’re entrusted with large sums of someone else’s money, the right thing to do is to make a bunch of risky investments, hoping great risks will yield great rewards, and the wrong thing to do is to play it safe and hide the money where it won’t be subject to market forces, ensuring that the principle won’t be lost.  Is that right?  Then that settles it: Jesus is to blame for the global financial meltdown.

            That’s the good news for today.  Amen.

            Not quite.

            In recent weeks, we’ve heard a parable about lamp oil that had nothing to do with lamp oil.  We’ve heard a parable about a wedding garment that had nothing to do with clothes.  We’ve heard a parable about vineyards that had nothing to do with grapes, and we’ve heard a parable about day laborers that had nothing to do with day laborers.  So even though today’s parable is about money and investments, it should come as no surprise that it really has nothing to do with investments or money.

            There are plenty of interesting questions this parable raises, but the most interesting question to me is, who is God?  Not who is God in this parable—most of us understand God to be the master who went on the journey—but who is God to you?  To take a phrase from the twelve steps, who is the God of your understanding?

            It’s an important question to ask, and not just for twelve steppers.  Because how you answer that question determines how you live in relationship with that God.

            The third slave in our parable today saw his master as harsh, possibly somewhat greedy, and demanding, and therefore acted out of fear.  He believed that the master’s wrath would be great if any of the principle were lost, so he chose take what he understood to be the safest course of action, and he hid the money out of sight, out of mind, the quintessential buried treasure.  And that action of the slave’s helped determine the action of the master, and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

            This parable stands alone in the gospel, with no ability to cross reference to see if this third slave’s view of the master is correct.  We don’t know if the master was indeed harsh, greedy, and demanding; we only have the slave’s testimony that he was.  But there is some evidence in the parable itself that the slave may have been somewhat misguided in his impressions of the master.

            First of all, how harsh, greedy, or demanding could he be if he entrusted so much money to three mere slaves?  It’s only an accident of the English language that ‘talent’ has its own meaning separate from the actual, biblical one.  This parable is not talking about gifts or abilities; it’s talking about money, and a lot of it.  One talent is worth fifteen years’ wages for a laborer.  In modern terms, we’re talking roughly four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  Per talent.  The master entrusted a total of eight talents with his slaves, or about 3.6 million dollars.  The first slave got two million, two hundred fifty thousand, the second slave got nine hundred thousand, and the third slave got four hundred fifty thousand.  What kind of harsh, greedy, demanding person entrusts that kind of money to three unskilled houseworkers?

            The next bit of evidence is in the actions of the first two slaves.  They didn’t act out of fear.  They acted out of hope and expectation.  They were given a chance to shine, and they took it.  Yes, there were risks involved, but their view of the master must have been such that they believed in his mercy if their investments had gone sour.  I mean, think about it: would you risk someone else’s money if you feared negative consequences for failing?  I don’t think these guys acted rashly; I think they did their homework, took well-researched, calculated risks, and tried to make responsible investments.  Those investments paid off for them.  I kind of wish one of the slaves had made some poor investments, or had timed the market wrong, and had lost the money, so we could see how the master would have reacted to that.  But clearly the first two slaves were not paralyzed with fear at the thought of that happening.  The master of their understanding was different from the master of the third slave’s understanding, even though it was the same master.

            The last bit of evidence that the third slave may have been misguided is in the words of the master to the first two slaves.  “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”  Trustworthy.  The master is not joyful because of their success; he’s joyful because of their trustworthiness.  Success is never mentioned.  They acted in good faith, and it’s that good faith that’s rewarded.  The third slave wasn’t punished because he didn’t make any money; he was punished because he didn’t act in good faith.  He didn’t act in bad faith, either.  He acted in no faith.  And that’s important, because this parable is talking about the kingdom of heaven, not as it is on earth in some distant future, but as it is on earth right now.

            I said earlier that most of us understand God to be the master in this parable, and that’s true, but I don’t think it’s about God the Father.  I think the master is God the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is telling his disciples that he is about to go away for a while, entrusting all that he has to them to manage, until he returns.  We’re still waiting for that return, and we’re still managing all that Jesus has given us.

            So who is the God of your understanding?  Who is the Jesus of your understanding?  Is he someone that you’re afraid of, someone that you need to hide yourself from, someone that’s going to judge you for your every little fault or failure?  Is he the company that you don’t see very often, so when you do you put on your best clothes and be on your best behavior, and engage in idle chitchat, avoiding everything of substance because it might crack the veneer of acceptability you’ve affected?  If that’s the Jesus of your understanding, then by all means hide away the treasure he entrusted to you, because I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when he comes back and finds out it’s gone, or diminished, because of something you did.

            But let me tell you something.  The harsh, greedy, demanding Jesus that I just described is not the Jesus of my understanding.  The Jesus of my understanding sees that I’m capable of a lot more than I give myself credit for, and has given me the tools I need to work in his kingdom.  He’s also given me a treasure, his holy Word that he wants me to spread, his boundless love that he wants me to invest.  And the kingdom of heaven is not like Wall Street, where a risky investment, or even a relatively safe one for that matter, might lose most or all its value.  The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom that is here on earth right now, waiting for its completion with the return of our King, never loses value.  If you put something into it, you’re guaranteed to get something out of it.  The only way to lose is to not participate at all.

            The treasure is not, by rights, ours.  It’s God’s, and he has entrusted us to manage it.  It’s not our success he wants; it’s our faithfulness.  Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.  And until he does, let us trust that the future is already in his hands.  Let us risk and move in ways that are new and maybe uncertain, sinning boldly as Luther would say, opening up our lives and our talents for the sake of others.  Let us practice justice and mercy when the world calls for retribution and payback, and let us do all this with no fear of failure.  Because when Christ does return, we will be reminded that the kingdom of heaven is not Wall Street, and God’s love and the promise of his Word are not limited commodities like common money, but the ultimate in renewable energy: the more you give, the more you have.  Amen.